I live in Tokyo now, which i am obsessed with. Im not really one of those artitst that are obsessed with manga characters or do cos play and play video games till sunrise. But i am equally infatuated with Tokyo for its overly stimulating environment. This place is so F***ing insane at times it forces you to find the root of everything, including yourself. It makes you appreciate simplicity. And also makes your time exponentially more valuable. I grew up in California where art is different. Its more digital. Tokyo art still has an illustrated presence which i love. Since i did a lot of digital stuff in Cali, i've resorted back to fundamental illustrations and painting. Is that why i came to Tokyo? No. i came here for the shopping. |
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| I wasn't always an artist, when i was 8 i wanted to be an inventor. I think because i originally wanted to be a millionaire, and someone told me i had to be and inventor in order to become one. So i tried inventing stuff. At one point id rigged the entire house so that i can turn on and off all the light switches from my bunk bed by pulling various strings. It was a messily constructed pully and lever system that pissed my mom off, but im pretty sure at that point i figured out i liked to make stuff. I think it was in 4th grade when i realized i was artistic. The teacher had asked everyone to draw the state they live in and while everyone struggled to draw a boot-shaped california, i drew an elaborate rendition of Gilligans Island (which was really embarrassing because i was the only filipino kid in the class). When i entered middle school i lost touch of my artistic side because i became interested in other things like boys and malls. O! but i did win "most artistic" in the yearbook. Then by high school i really took my artisitc abilities to the next level via notebook doodles. I even won my first art contest when i discovered my affinity with prisma colored pencils. And then for some strange twist of fate, i started modeling. I guess the only difference between me and other artists is that i tend to exploit myself as a model in my artwork and exhibitions and vise versa. I think some people think im really self indulgent for doing it this way, but actually i think its a quite brillian buisness model. |
| Being an art major/artist is no joke. I cant tell you how many times i've met non-serious artist in school who chose art as their major because they thought it was going to be easy. Man were they disappointed. Theres just nothing more humiliating than failing a beginning drawing class, haha. In school i found out that there are only 2 departments that are open 24hours one is engineering, and the other is art. So if you think art majors are slackers, think again. We are slaves to our passion and we cannot simple stop when we are finished. We stop when we feel content with our work, and for most of us we can never reach this point before critique deadlines. |
| I recently did a 2 month internship for the comany that owns the infamous Tsutaya store. I worked on the 23rd floor. I dont know if it was the ear-popping altitude difference or the breathtaking panoramic view up there, but i had somewhat of an epiphany to what i wanted in life. My life dream if you will. I want to breed artists. No, not like teach people chiaroscuro and perspective, but rather, reach deep within the blandest personalities and evoke creative nature. How did i come up with this from the 23rd floor? Well, i think you would know if you just surrounded yourself with the mundane day to day salary man or woman mindset. I just dont believe that some people absolutely cannot be creative. I think its in all of us and wouldnt that be cool if there was a way to evoke it. Without doing heavy barbituates of course... just light ones. haha. ok dont steel my idea! |